I wanted to write the review for “The Last Letter” just in time for Memorial Day but life has a way of taking over your day. The review is late for Memorial Day and much later than February 2019 when it was published, the original year that I wanted to feature the book on Memorial Day.
If you haven’t read the book, the dog tags on the book cover gives away that the story is centered on a military member, well… 2 military men to be exact. Best friends and brothers of war. One did not make it, and Beckett, the one who lived, was entrusted by his best friend to take care of his younger sister Ella and her two kids, Colt and Maisie.
A simple request, right? It should be easy but not for Beckett, a known loner with no family except his military unit and his dog Havoc, an extraordinary military K9 who can identify bombs but also function as a search and rescue dog. Beckett has to help Ella, a fiercely independent woman who is protective of her home and her two children, making Mac’s request in his last letter daunting with a dash of impossible.
In romancelandia, it is easy to deduce that Beckett and Ella would fall in love. Beckett would in turn also care for Colt and Maisie as his own. That happened. It was an easy jump, plot wise. Story wise though, Rebecca Yarros wrote a yarn that is sweetly poignant which In Touch Weekly described as a “haunting, heartbreaking and ultimately inspirational love story.”
The journey was not straight from Point A to Point B. Beckett, Ella, Colt and Maisie, together with Havoc had to navigate a minefield called LIFE. And as readers turn the page of the book, we fall in love with all of them. Beckett becomes less taciturn; Ella becomes less prickly and twins Colt and Maisie display independence and intelligence mature for their age. Meanwhile, Havoc does not become a family dog, but continues to be a K9 SAR.
Surprisingly, it is Havoc who demonstrates to readers how a war veteran reintegrates himself in society. His slow friendship with the twins and gradual acceptance by the others in the Mackenzie household is unusual for a dog which usually is an instant success with everyone.
If you’re an “audio” listener, you would probably feel that Teddy Hamilton and Jennifer Stark were perfectly cast for the story. Hamilton’s baritone just hit the right tempo and tone for Beckett while Stark enunciated Ella’s suffering, but she never projected the character as victim. Rather, Stark showed that Ellas was a very strong woman though life dealt her some harsh blows.
As already pointed out by several reviewers, this is an extraordinary love story. Perusing the reviews in Amazon and Goodreads, “The Last Letter” is a hit. And because this review is 5 years too late, chances are it will not even be on the radar. Then again, as I stated at the start, I wanted to write this review to honor the men and women who came before us and laid their lives for our country.
There is also a personal reason. I come from a military family, so I could relate to Ella as a military family member. I want to write this for the “young” me, when I was a young bride waiting for my husband to come home from the war. My husband is home now; he had done his duty. Yet, there are still a lot of young and old couples out there, where at least one of them is a military member away on deployment while one stays home waiting.
It’s not easy to wait and not easy to face the unexpected. But like Beckett and Ella, we all roll with the punches. Because that’s what military life had taught us.
Though it is late, Happy Memorial Day everyone!
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Summary
The dog tags on the book cover gives away that the story is centered on a military member, well… 2 military men to be exact. Best friends and brothers of war. One did not make it, and Beckett, the one who lived, was entrusted by his best friend to take care of his younger sister Ella and her two kids, Colt and Maisie.
